


It's complicated

by MissesMarvellous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Hate to Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Mutual Pining, Natasha is awesome, Pining, Sexual Tension, Skinny!Steve, Smut, Some oldschool stucky, Stucky - Freeform, They fight a lot, University, and scary, bucky is a smart boy, haters to lovers because I love that trope, rated m for explicit sexual content, steve is an even smarter boy, they are doing their doctoral thesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22339678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissesMarvellous/pseuds/MissesMarvellous
Summary: Bucky‘s 28th birthday-party is basically just him with a bottle of vodka, his best friend Nat and a letter, confirming that he will indeed be starting his doctoral thesis program next semester. Soon after, the art and literature student starts his thesis and get’s wrapped up into the messy world of academia, whilst finding himself feeling weirdly torn between hating his obnoxious coworker Steve and – well, not hating him.----Infos:AU!MCU-Characters working at a university. Everyone is kinda smart and kinda scary and kinda sassy.I loved the fic "This is how you argue" by runningwafers back when it came out in 2016 and took the concept of having my fave boys fall in love at university, whilst also nerding out about my field of study. I didn't study in the US, so please don't call me out about that. This is how it works at european universities.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	It's complicated

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read the fic, here are some things you should know: I studied culture and media at several European universities so this fic is obviously heavily influenced by that. However of course every university works different and I tried fitting in some US-lingo so it's not 100% correct on the terminology - but the stress is very realistic (I am dying as we speak).
> 
> Please take everything you are about to read about my course of study with a grain of salt, I love it very much, no matter how much I make these characters complain.
> 
> I also want to make clear that there is going to be a lot of fighting and also some sexy times coming ahead. Readers who don't feel too happy about conflict or explicit sexual content might be better of avoiding this fic. 
> 
> I wish you all a lot of fun reading it!

“James Barnes?” A stern voice ripped through the silence inside the student center. It was the end of March and the sun already managed to heat the shallow building to an almost unbearable degree. Bucky’s head snapped up, looking through the long room along the rows of tables until he met the eyes of the women who’d just called him. Her face matched the voice. Strong features, hard lines, a mouth that looked like it rarely ever smiled. But who could blame her? Working in a student center seemed like a living nightmare.

He made his way towards her desk and sat down, giving her a slight smile. “That’s me.”

“I see”, she gave him a quick run over and averted her eyes back to the computer in front of her. “Mr. Barnes you are starting your doctoral thesis next month, is that correct?”

Bucky swallowed. This was real; this was happening: in just three to five short years he was gonna be Dr. Barnes. The thought made his body tingle. He cleared his throat and nodded, “yeah. Contract starts officially on the first of April.”

“Right”, the woman hacked away at her keyboard, not looking up again until she had to gather the contract, Bucky’s official credentials and his passport. He handed them to her without saying another word.

Shit, why was he so nervous? Every time the woman cocked an eyebrow, stopped typing for a second or let out a small sigh – all absolutely normal things to do whilst working – he felt like everything was gonna come down on him. Like she was getting ready to tell him that everything was a big mistake, he could never start his thesis, he wasn’t smart enough, didn’t come from the right family, had the wrong credentials. Shit. He needed to breathe.

When the woman looked up again he steadied himself, ready to take the punch. But she just handed him back his stuff, giving him a sly smile as if she’d been reading his thoughts the whole time and said: “alright Mr. Barnes, you are now officially a part of the program. Please collect your I.D. sometime next we- oh no wait, you studied here, ugh”, she turned to the computer, “give me your student I.D., I can change your status right now.” Bucky did as he was told, eyes wide. This. Was. Happening. “Here”, she stamped something on the I.D. and gave it back. “Financing starts on the first, you have to fulfill at least 20 credits this semester, one part by teaching the other part by attending the colloquium, but you know all of that already I’m assuming. Congratulations.”

And with that he was free to go.

He stepped outside, letting the fear that he’d been holding in out with a long sigh. He looked at his I.D., it said ‘postgrad’ with a little side bit that had the initials of his program on it. He was doing this. He kinda wanted to scream, but instead he fished out his phone, calling Natasha.

“Hey Nat”, his voice was shaky but that was alright. He just officially started his damn doctoral degree. He was allowed some shakiness.

“Well hello there Mr. postgrad. Everything went fine?” Her voice had an immensely calming effect on him.

“Yeah”, he took a deep breath, “I’m in the program, Nat. I can’t believe it. They just let me in, I mean what the hell? I-“

“Calm down”, he could hear the smile in her voice, “you deserve this Bucky. I’m- oh fuck no!” Bucky leaned on the wall of the student center. What was going on? He heard some loud noises, then an annoyed sounding Natasha back on the line, “I’m in my office, come on up. We can look for your new desk and – oh for fucks sake in a minute!” He blinked slowly at his phone, awaiting some kind of explanation to what was happening on the other side of the line. “Just come up here, fast, before I kill her.” Click. She was gone and Bucky started walking. He knew Natasha long enough to know that she was not joking.

*

Natasha was a fierce young woman with red hair, elegant features and a sharp tongue. Bucky knew her since his second bachelor semester – so basically all his adult life. She had been there when he had to write his first real term paper, when he fucked up his bachelors thesis and cried for a week straight, when he got into the masters program anyways, when he had a very dumb crush on his TA and was heartbroken for a while, when he took a year after graduation to work, only to get kicked out of the journalism-job he’d been promised and now she was there when he got into the doctoral thesis program she was accepted to half a year ago. In short: they knew each other well. So when he got into the small office space she shared with another postgrad and saw her murderous gaze, he knew shit was about to go down.

“I told you I’d do it! You don’t need to supervise my every fucking step damnit!” The redhead was talking to – well screaming at – another woman. Bucky tried to remember who she was, but he had no idea.

“I am just doing my job, Natasha. You didn’t finish the paper and I had to step in, otherwise this could’ve gone very wrong for you. For the both of us, really.” The other woman was talking calmly; though Bucky saw her hands twitch at Natasha’s words. She wasn’t much taller than her, with short brown hair tucked away into neat curls right below her jaw line.

“I had a full day, you just wanted to sweep in and gain the points with Professor Hill. Don’t give me that bullshit!” Natasha wasn’t screaming anymore, instead her voice turned dangerously low.

“I am not-“, the woman turned around as she notices Bucky. She let a sigh out, turning back to Nat, “look, I’m sorry, okay. I’m not about to turn against one of the only other women in this program. Next time we have to communicate better, alright? This is our anthology, let’s do it right.” With that she made her way to the door, smiling embarrassed in Bucky’s direction as she passed him.

“So”, he scratched the back of his head, slowly approaching Natasha, “care to tell me what that was about?”

She groaned angrily and sat down. Bucky had rarely ever seen her so loose, normally, she was the most composed person he knew. “Me and Peggy have a project together and it’s killing us.”

He nodded, having no idea what she meant, but he wanted to seem sympathetic.

“It’s an anthology about the women of Bauhaus and we have to each write a paper, get other people – ideally people who know their shit – to write papers, proofread them, get in contact with the publishers, accept and work in any changes, figure out the layout…”, she let her voice trail off and groaned, “you get the gist.”

“Sounds shitty”, he was still standing awkwardly in the door frame, looking around Nat’s office. He’d been in here before, but never this long. Natasha hated the small, stuffy room.

“It is. And you”, she looked up and gave him a dirty grin, “are soon about to know just how shitty. Welcome in the program, Bucky! Happy to see they recognized your genius.”

He felt his cheeks burn and turned away, “thanks.” Damn, he was so bad with compliments.

“You wanna go check out your office?” Nat was on her feet in no time, leading Bucky out of her office down the hallway, known for its particularly tiny rooms left and right. The perfect spot for the postgrads offices. The hallway had no windows, there was no own bathroom for them and it smelled terrible. Bucky couldn’t stop smiling.

This was his dream – and he was living it. Ever since he stepped foot into the university he knew that this was it. He wanted all of it. The long hours, the shitty pay, the stress, the fact that half the books in the library were missing – he loved it back then and he loved it now.

His doctoral supervisor, the sole person responsible for Bucky being here, had her office on the other side of the floor. Professor Hill was a world renowned academic in their field, having written her doctoral thesis on women in modern art and her professorial thesis on the shifts in female lead art programs after the Second World War. She was also scary as fuck. Her eyes piercing, her smile always a little intimidating and her standards too high to ever fully be met. She had been the person giving Bucky a C on his bachelor thesis, making it very clear that he was not too dumb for this university, but that he simply had to rearrange his points and learn how to write for a certain audience. She pushed him during his masters, proposing to him, that he’d take off a year before applying for a postgrad position, to figure out if that was really what he wanted. And now he was back, knowing that it was indeed the way he wanted to go. She smiled at him, as they walked down the hallway towards Buckys new office. His office – how surreal did that sound?

“Hello Mr. Barnes, I take it you’re here to claim your desk?” She smiled her intimidating smile, but Bucky knew that she was happy to see him.

“Yes Mrs. Hill. Glad to be back.” They exchanged a long look.

“So am I”, she looked over to Nat, “and I see you’re already being pulled into Ms. Romanoff’s drama?” She smiled and Natasha shifted uncomfortably next to Bucky.

“I didn’t know you were close by, sorry for the screaming. Ms. Carter and I are just-“

“Stressed, I know, I remember being in your position.” The professor met both of their eyes and nodded, “I’m going back to my office. Mr. Barnes please see me by the end of week to talk about your plans this semester. You have a class to teach and only a month to prepare; we better get to it soon.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, “yeah I’ll come by soon. Thank you Mrs. Hill.”

As soon as their supervisor was gone, Natasha let out a deep breath and Bucky laughed, rubbing his eyes. “Fucking hell, she heard.” The redhead looked about ready to jump off a cliff.

“Yeah, but she didn’t seem mad, though I can never tell with her.” He propped himself up and looked at his friend, “ready to look who I’m gonna share my office with?”

“Oh yeah”, her face lit up in a dangerous way. “I already know and you will love it.” She gave him a wink and pointed at a door to their right. It was the second last one before the end of the hallway. Bucky knew that he further back the offices were, the crappier they usually tended to be. He braced himself before taking the last few steps, only to start swearing almost immediately. The little sign next to the door, right above the display for office hours, had two names on it in a bland fond: Bucky Barnes (postgrad, TA); Steve Rogers (postgrad, TA). His heart sunk into his knees.

This day just got so much worse.

He turned back to Nat who was, not surprisingly, holding back her laughter.

“I am going to die, aren’t I?”

“Oh c’mon”, she patted his back lightly, still laughing, “he’s not that bad. I never really understood why you hate him so much!”

Bucky grimaced. Why did he hate Steve Rogers? Well for starters, the little shit was an annoying know-it-all, who started his program not one, but two years early because he was apparently smarter than all of them – and he let them know that constantly. Every chance he got he argued against everything Bucky said, most of the time successfully, much to Bucky’s disgruntlement. He grid his teeth. “You remember the fifth semester, when he wrote his bachelors thesis early and got a job as a tutor and worked for Professor Coulson and finished all of his classes with an A and still had the time to belittle me every chance he got?”

Natasha grinned, “I remember you both bickering constantly over mundane points.”

“He’s an asshole. I have never met someone who is so out to get other people. I mean how much evil can fit into such a tiny person?” Bucky lowered his voice, fully aware that he had to be cautious not to scream loud enough for the other people on the floor to hear.

He was just so angry. He’d met Steve his first semester in a class about altruistic motives in art. Both of them were new to the university, Steve obviously stemming from an academic background, as he started showing off his extensive knowledge right away. Steve was always the one raising his hand, discussing every time something was up for debate, never missing a topic, not understanding something or simply shutting up to let others shine for a change. The first couple of weeks, Bucky had actually looked up to him, trying to befriend the other man. Steve was impressive, he drew, wrote and discussed like a pro – making everyone else seem mediocre, no matter how good they actually were.

Halfway through the semester, he belittled Bucky for not knowing McCarthys model on the effects of culture on the individual and society. He actually raised his hand in class, just to ask him what he was doing at this university, if he wasn’t reading the material. Bucky had stopped trying to be nice to him at that very moment. He didn’t even try to explain that not everybody had a full scholarship and all the time in the world to read and study. He’d just given up. Not that Steve needed him anyways. The small, blonde man had a heap of friends, some of which were Bucky’s friends too. But they never hung out, never talked – apart from arguing in class – and tried spending as little time in a room together as possible. By the time they both had started their masters, it was pretty clear that they hated each other; Steve thinking that Bucky was an idiot who didn’t deserve to study at this university and Bucky thinking that Steve was an ignorant asshole who could go fuck himself.

And now this.

It couldn’t have been any other person. No. It had to be Steve. Of all the postgrads in their program. Fucking hell.

“Bucky?” He snapped out of his very angry thoughts and met Natasha’s eyes. She had one eyebrow cocked, looking at him with a mixture of amusement and pity. “You okay?”

“Yeah”, he shuddered, “just had a montage of all the times Steve fucked me over playing in my head. Let’s go inside before he catches us out here. Today is a special day. I really don’t want to see him right now.”

He opened the door to his new office, Natasha right behind him. He knew she still had that evil smirk on her face. “You know”, his friend pushed forward into the small room, “you’re going to see him a lot. But for now you’re safe.”

“Hm?” He took in the room, not fully listening to Nat.

“He’s in Moscow.”

That brought him back to their conversation, “why the fuck is he in Moscow?”

She shrugged, taking a seat in Bucky’s new office chair, “he got an offer to go there for a month. It’s for his thesis. He’s writing about Russian art under some czar right now and took the chance.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes, “how does he always get these opportunities? It’s like he’s some kind of prodigy, the way everyone keeps putting him on a pedestal. And how do you know all of that?”

“Well”, he already knew he wasn’t gonna like her next sentence, “you know we’re in the same program. We sit in the same colloquium and he told me about it. No big deal.”

“No big deal?” He squinted, how could she? “You don’t remember him completely dismissing you every chance he got in that one class about Russian folklore in art. And you are Russian! You are literally writing your thesis about Russian children’s literature! It should be you sitting in Moscow right now! How are you taking that so well?”

“Bucky”, she looked at him with a more serious tone in her eyes, “I am not that petty. That’s all. You know, if you two would just get over yourselves for once–“

He cut her off. “No.” For a second he really got angry with Natasha. “In his worldview I am not allowed here. He is the embodiment of academic gate keeping. I’m not gonna let him have the satisfaction of knowing, that I am – in his eyes – not only stupid, but also gullible enough to forgive him.”

“Aight”, Natasha held her hands up in a defensive manner and shrugged, “I get it. You worked fucking hard, he was a massive prick. Hate each other, fine by me! But”, she narrowed her eyes and Bucky felt her gaze on him even though he wasn’t looking at her, “if you must kill each other, do it over work. Otherwise Hill will probably kick you both out.”

*

The weeks flew by and before he knew it, Bucky was in the middle of a gigantic clusterfuck that somehow had the nerve to call itself a ‘postgradual TA position’. He sat in his office most days from around 9am till 12pm, went out for a quick lunch with Nat, sometimes dragging Peggy along, got into Mrs. Hills office at 14.30pm at the latest, then get back to work until 8pm, sometimes longer.

At the moment he was with Mrs. Hill, discussing the stuff he had to somehow get into the heads of his students at the beginning of the new semester. He was also trying very hard not to cry. Seeing as he was in his first year, he had no seminar fitted to his thesis, but instead taught the general ‘lit and art 101’-class, that all postgrads had to do. He also had to manage office hours, tutorage to a lecture by Mrs. Hill (which he had to attend as well) and was responsible for the questions, worries and general problems of around 200 students, who were in their first three semesters. Piling on that he had to attend a colloquium once a month to check up with his thesis and provide feedback to others, give peer review to at least one assigned article a week, had to sit in with Mrs. Hill every other week, write an article about a part of his thesis proposal and – not that it was important, seeing as he was here to write his doctoral thesis – _start the damn thing_.

“Mr. Barnes, are you alright?” Mrs. Hill held a steady gaze over her reading glasses. She looked worried. Bucky was almost touched.

“Yeah it’s just… so much.” He had no idea why he was so honest with her. Academia had taught him to always just pretend as though you knew everything, had everything handled and no stress or problems at all.

“I know.” She let out a small sigh and took off her glasses, eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, as if she was trying to combat a headache. “It’s too much, if you ask me. But believe me when I tell you that you will rise to the challenge.” She opened her eyes and gave him a small smile. It was the most genuine gesture Bucky had ever seen her make, apart from the time he sat in this very office, crying over his bachelors thesis. She’d been very nice back then as well.

“I don’t know”, he looked at his feet, “I mean I already know I’m not the smartest person in the program. I just wonder if I’m in over my head here. Why try, when I won’t even finish the first year, you know?”

Still too afraid to look up, he could only guess the smile in her voice as she said, “James, we both know that you have a tendency to over think and underestimate yourself, based on something as mundane, random and meaningless as grades. I would’ve never accepted you into the program, and under my supervision too, if I didn’t think you had it in you.”

That made him smile and finally meet her eyes. The look behind them was still stern and scary, but looked a touch softer that usual.

“Thank you”, he said finally, his voice shaking a little less than he had feared.

“You are welcome, now stop moping and get out of my office.” She smiled again and Bucky hopped on his feet, ready to leave. “Oh and Mr. Barnes?” He turned around with anticipation, “please welcome Mr. Rogers back from and tell him that Mr. Coulson wants to see him first thing tomorrow.” Bucky froze and looked at his supervisor, who was still talking, (“he would’ve come to see him and tell him that himself, but no, apparently my husband is just too busy and really thinks I’m not busy as well, as if I was his damn secretary!”) though more to herself than him, or so it seemed. But he didn’t really listen anyways. Steve was back? When the hell did that happen?

He interrupted Mrs. Hill’s tirade about her husband, Professor Coulson, with a quick goodbye and closed the door behind him, looking around in fear of seeing Steve Rogers strolling around the floor. He was nowhere to be seen. God, he must’ve come back right after Bucky headed out for lunch and was probably sitting in his office – well their office. He suppressed a groan and shot Natasha a heated text about the matter, before he made his way to the hallway, where the postgrad’s offices were. It was at the other end of the floor, not even a minute’s walk. But Bucky sure stretched it out, walking slowly, checking his phone every couple of seconds to see, if Natasha had already answered him.

When he finally stood in front of the office door he remembered Natasha’s words. Was he being childish here? After all, they were all adults, hell, colleagues now. He took a deep breath and made a mental note to at least try being friendly to his university-nemesis.

A thought that evaporated the second he opened the door.

Steve Rogers was objectively tiny. He was about 5’’3’, 5’’4’ at the most, 90lbs soaking wet, with bones sticking out, framing his clothing in a very particular way. It made him look like something you’d have to keep safe. But fucking hell did his demeanor break this picture of a frail being. There he was, sitting at Bucky’s desk, typing something into an expensive looking laptop. Spread out on the desk were three books, open with markings all over the shown pages, a couple of loose documents, some pictures he probably took in Russia and a couple of markers and pencils.

Bucky cleared his throat, unwilling to smile or do any kind of greeting really.

“Oh”, Steve had looked up in anticipation, a look that quickly fell of his face as he saw Bucky standing in the doorframe. “It’s you.”

He felt anger rising up in his chest, who the fuck did he think he was? “That’s my desk.” Bucky said dryly, instead of shouting one of the profanities that his unhelpful brain suggested.

“Huh?” The other man was already back to his laptop, eyes glued to whatever he was working on. He didn’t even look up as he said, “just take the other one.”

“I already set up on that desk, there is my stuff in the drawers, my books next to it, I-“

“Really?” Steve cocked an eyebrow, voice still sounding uninterested, eyes still on his work, “I didn’t notice any traces of someone working here. I just assumed you haven’t been here already.” Bucky was fuming, but the blonde wasn’t finished. With a sly fuck-you-smile in the corner of his mouth he looked up, mustered Bucky once from head to toes and averted his eyes back to the laptop, “then again”, he said, “it’s you we’re talking about. Wouldn’t expect much work-related stuff anyways.”

That was it.

Bucky stormed out of the office and knocked on Nat’s door so aggressively, when she opened, her eyes were half full of anger and half full of murder.

“What the _fuck_ , Bucky?” She practically hissed at him.

“Steve is here”, Bucky tried to calm himself, before she would start ripping him apart, “he took my damn desk because he quote ‘didn’t notice any traces of someone working here’ end quote. He really has the fucking nerve to tell me that he does not expect any work-related stuff in there, because it’s me and well, apparently I don’t fucking work.”

Nat’s face had an annoyed look on it, until Bucky came to the last part of his retelling. Now she looked angry again. “Oh hell, you two are children!” She threw her hands up in the air and walked right past Bucky in the direction of his office. “Literal”, she knocked and opened the door, “children!”

Bucky ran after her and caught a look of pure horror on Steve’s face, as he looked up to Natasha. “You”, she rubbed her temples. “Just take the free desk and leave Bucky alone. He’s been working every day the last three weeks, give him a fucking break.”

Bucky grinned, until she turned to him. _Oh oh._

“And you”, she pushed her chin forward and stepped so close towards him, that she had to put her head back and look up to him, “can you please deal with your issues without me having to interfere because someone _stole your desk_? Something so childish”, she looked back at Steve who made himself very small in his – well, Bucky’s – chair, “that I am seriously having seconds thoughts on how the hell you two got into this program!”

And with that she was gone. Storming back into her own office, leaving Steve and Bucky in an awkward silence. It was Steve, who made the first move towards something akin to peace, as he slowly closed his books, gathering everything on the desk to move it towards the other desk in the room. Bucky watched him, closing the door behind them, trying very hard to convince himself that not every other postgrad that had their office in this hallway overheard what’d just happened.

“So”, he said with an embarrassingly scratchy voice.

“Yeah”, Steve looked at the floor, the walls, the ceiling – avoiding Bucky as well, as it was possible in a room as small as their office. “I’m gonna get back to work.” He said after a full minute of not confronting each other.

“Uh, me too.” Bucky sat down at his desk, pulling his laptop and a paperback notebook out of one of the drawers to his left. “Mr. Coulson wants to talk to you.” He blurted out, suddenly remembering his talk with Mrs. Hill.

“What? Right now?” Steve looked up, locking eyes with Bucky for the first time since – did they ever do that before? Bucky barely remember the time where they didn’t ignore each other or had been at each other’s throats. The blonde had deep blue eyes, big, especially for his frame, with lashes long enough, to be noticeable from Bucky’s seat on the other side of the room.

“N… no”, he stuttered, clearing his throat, giving him some time to figure out how to talk to Steve without being passive aggressive. “First thing tomorrow morning. Mrs. Hill told me that he’s busy right now.”

“Of course”, Steve muttered under his breath, all of a sudden looking angry and tired.

Bucky wanted to ask, but then he remembered that they weren’t really on speaking terms. Especially when it came to stuff in their private lives. He opened his laptop and started the thesis-planning-program he’d gotten from a friend who worked at a different university, fleshing out the notes around the chapter he’d discussed with Mrs. Hill earlier today.

His thesis was centered on fairy tales and their origins, one of his favorite chapters already being the one about apples. Apples as a feature in media, especially children’s media, were fascinating, yet funny enough to keep him and Mrs. Hill laughing during the talks in her office. He knew that Steve was writing about something similar, but focusing more on European literature, whilst Bucky was doing an oversight on all kind of fairy tales – be it European, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Aboriginal, Native American or South American. Most of the doctoral candidates under Mrs. Hill and Mr. Coulson were writing about children’s literature and art – it made sense, seeing as their program was financed as a cultural science center for children’s media. It was still weird talking to eight people on the regular, who were all doing more or less the same kind of work.

Bucky scrunched his eyebrows, as he searched for examples of apples in modern European literature and put everything he found into his spreadsheet. It was filling up quite nicely. At the end of the day, he would have a good variety to choose his examples from. Mrs. Hill would be pleased.

Every now and then he looked up and glanced around the room, his gaze lingering on Steve, who was focused on his work, biting his lower lip in a way that reminded Bucky of the painful truth that Steve was hot. Something he never allowed himself to think about. But now… he’d never been around him for that long. Hell, he’d never seen the guy shut up for this amount of time. It was weird and Bucky had absolutely no idea, how they were gonna make this office-situation work.

*

The next day came and Bucky cursed himself out for being late. He’d gotten breakfast with his sister Rebecca and it was wonderful, as per usual. Talking to her took the pressure off him for at least a couple of minutes. He could explain his thesis and how he felt like it was all a big cosmic joke and he’d just wake up and realize that he’d never get to write his thesis. Not with all those people around, who were so much smarter and more deserving of their spot in the program. She understood, being only the second person from their family – after Bucky – to go to college.

The downside, as he realized in the elevator on his way up, was that Steve’s first impression on a ‘usual day in Bucky’s life’ would be him coming in at a quarter to twelve smelling like pancakes. But Steve looked way too stressed to even notice Bucky coming in. He was leaning over his desk – the right one this time – sorting papers and shuffling around open books. Bucky noticed some subtle changes in the room, looking around. On the wall over Steve’s desk was a calendar of some sort, marked with all the things Steve had to do over the next week. Every hour on the day meticulously planned away, starting at 5am, ending at 2am. How was this guy alive?

Speaking of alive – there was also now a small plant on Bucky’s desk, with a note. He cocked an eyebrow and sat down, trying his best to ignore Steve, who by now way practically sitting on his desk, looking increasingly distressed.

Instead, he took a look at the plant and the note next to it. It was from Steve, Bucky squinted. Why did Steve leave him a plant?

“Sorry I was a dick, here’s a plant.”

That was all, the note said. It also implied that Steve planned on not talking to Bucky in the foreseeable future. Why else leave a note and not do this in person? Bucky huffed and put the note away, pulling out his materials for today.

Right. Working. He had to… work now. Something something apples.

He stared at his laptop screen. The empty word-document stared back. His fingers were twitching nervously on the keyboard.

He looked over to Steve, looked back.

The blonde was still bent over the desk, his ass very prominently in his jeans. Apples.

Fucking hell. Bucky shook his head. He had to work, not look at the ass of a guy who very clearly hated him. And Bucky hated him back. After yesterday, he almost had to remind himself of that.

He focused back on his work, trying to think of a chapter title. Nothing.

Bucky looked back at Steve and noticed, that he was now sitting on his desk, head red – from anger, he assumed – typing away. It was very clear, that he didn’t find what he’d been looking for.

He shouldn’t.

He really, really shouldn’t.

“Everything okay?” The sound of his own voice startled him. Steve leaned back in his chair, allowing Bucky to meet his eyes. He looked annoyed.

“James”, Bucky flinched at that name, “I’m not gonna start something, because I want this to work and also because I am frankly very scared of Natasha, but my work and me, for that matter, are none of your business. I’d like to keep it that way.” He turned around and Bucky felt seriously pissed off.

“Man, what is your damn problem?” He looked over to Steve with a mixture of anger and a sincere want to know, what he did, to make him hate him so much. Other than not being smart enough, of course.

Steve took a very audible breath and shook his head, Bucky couldn’t see his face and he had a feeling that that was for the better. “Language!” He simply said, voice and tone hard. There was less emotion behind it, than Bucky thought he deserved. At least get angry, he thought. Also language? Really? That was so ridiculous. Just how pretentious was this guy?

He was ready to get angry and loud, when Steve turned around and clicked his tongue. “Sorry”, he said looking to the side, almost in pain. He wasn’t one to easily apologize, was what Bucky got from this demeanor. He was also effectively stunned into silence. Steve Rogers just apologized to him. There was something you don’t see every day.

“I’m”, Steve was clearly struggling and Bucky, being a bit of an asshole himself, thoroughly enjoyed the look on his face, as he formulated the sentence in his head, “stressed.” He stretched that word out, before further explaining himself. “But that’s not a reason to be shitty to you. So I’m sorry. I got a 101-course to prepare, as well as a class on the topic of my dissertation and Coulson just dropped on me, that I apparently have to write a paper about the stuff I researched in Russia and to be honest I didn’t get anything from my stay there except a three-week-cold and next to all this my thesis is sitting abandoned in a corner crying and I just kinda want to join it.” He was still not looking at Bucky, “so, yeah. That’s what’s up. I’m just a little overwhelmed, but it’ll be fine. It always works out somehow.”

Bucky had no idea what to say. Steve Rogers, perfect Steve Rogers who was always so on top of everything – struggled? With stress nonetheless? The same shit Bucky was struggling with? All the smugness he felt just a second ago was gone. Steve wasn’t his nemesis or had it out for him – he was just as scared and stressed as Bucky.

“I’m sorry, too.” He said finally, giving Steve a shy smile. “Doesn’t Mr. Coulson help you with your thesis?”

Steve let out a bitter laugh, “are you kidding? The man is busy and he doesn’t want to impose his ideas on my work and-“, he bit his lip, “you know, he’s really pushing me. To be the best version of me. For that people have to learn how to do stuff on their own.”

Bucky wanted to roll his eyes at the ‘best version of me’-comment, but he stopped himself. “Mrs. Hill pushes me too, but they’re our supervisors, they have to help. That’s literally their job.”

“Well”, Steve shrugged, “I mean technically their job is to teach and write papers, guiding us is a bonus. Besides, I kinda agree with Mr. Coulson’s methods more than with Mrs. Hill’s.”

“Obviously not, though.” Bucky’s tongue slipped and he could’ve slapped himself. Why was he so keen to be passive aggressive with this guy?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve sounded instantly defensive.

Bucky took a deep breath, “look, I’m not trying to step on your toes here or something. But if Coulson would guide you a little, you’d have way less stress and something to work with, regarding your thesis.”

Steve rubbed his nose bridge, “you barely started your first year in this program and think you can give me advice on how to avoid stress? Really?”

Bucky snapped up at the aggressive undertone in Bucky’s voice. “You’re the one who took a shot at me because of stress, pal.” He said, letting the ‘pal’ roll off his tongue as snappy as possible.

“Yeah, but you’ve got no idea what this program does to you. You think Mrs. Hill will hold your hand all the way through to the defense? That’s not how it works, not at all. She’s coddling you because she knows exactly that without her you’d never…” he trailed off, looking almost sorry for a second. But Bucky was too shocked to really notice.

“I’d never what?”

“James, let it go.” Steve waved aimlessly through the room. But Bucky was not gonna let this go.

“I’d never what?” His tone hardened with every word.

“You’d never even finish the first year.” Steve sounded sucked his cheeks in and looked at the floor.

“Fuck you.” Bucky stood up, got his laptop and walked to the door, his face hot and red. He had one hand already on the door handle, feeling Steve’s eyes in his back. “You know”, he turned around, meeting Steve’s eyes, immediately making the other one uncomfortable, “I might not be as smart as you or have as much time for my studies, because, you know”, he let out a bitter laugh, “some of us actually have to work. But I love this. I love this university and this program, despite the fact that I have to see your condescending ass every day. That’s how much I love it. I have enough self doubts without a snobby, pathetic wanna-be-prodigy-boy telling me I’m not good enough. So please, leave your fucking thoughts by yourself. I sure as shit won’t ask again what’s bothering you, since you so clearly don’t give any shit about the feelings of other people. Or their opinions.”

He turned back, opened the door and got out.

*

He got two hours of actual work done at the university coffee-shop before Natasha found him. The rage, anger and sadness he felt at Steve’s words made him realize something: He was gonna do this. If only to show Steve that his idea of him was wrong.

Natasha slid on the chair next to Bucky and sighed.

“So, I just had an interesting interaction with Steve.” She grabbed Bucky’s arm and squeezed lightly.

He looked away, “yeah? Did he tell you about how dumb I am? Too dumb, to even finish the first year. His words, not mine.”

“He doesn’t think you’re dumb”, she sounded genuine but Bucky felt a little sting. Why wasn’t she on his side?

“He told me.” Bucky shrugged, eyes still searching the room for something to stare at other than Natasha.

“You wanna know what he told me the first time we talked about you?” Bucky was torn between wanting to know what he said and asking about the apparent other times they talked about him. He nodded reluctantly.

“He told me that he’s angry at you.” She paused for dramatic effect and Bucky wanted to roll his eyes, but he mostly wanted to know why. “Because he thinks that you throw away your talent and your opportunities.”

“What?” Bucky looked to Nat in shock and disbelieve. He wasn’t relieved. Steve thought of himself as important enough to judge who was spending the right amount on their work and that was just about the most pretentious and judgy thing Bucky had ever heard off.

“You skip class from time to time, took a full year off to work, don’t read your materials – he takes this very seriously and has problems with people who, in his eyes, don’t. Now”, she lifted her hand shutting Bucky, who was ready to reply, up, “I tried telling him, that people can take university seriously and still have a life, but in my honest opinion, it’s a compliment. I slack off from time to time, but he doesn’t antagonize me the way he does with you. He obviously thinks you waste something, which is”, she added with a smirk, “highly offensive to me. I am just as capable as you fuckers.”

Bucky had to process. For a short moment today, he’d thought that Steve was just a guy. With stress and angst and self-doubt, just like everyone else. But no matter what stood behind Steve’s comment, it was still hurtful and he was not going to forget about it.

“Hey Nat”, the redhead lifted her eyebrows, “thank you.” She didn’t have to do this. He really was thankful, even if it changed nothing about the way he felt.

She smiled and hit his arm playfully, which actually hurt like hell but Bucky kept a straight face. There was still something he wanted to ask her. “You’ve been with Mrs. Hill as a supervisor for a couple of months now and I”, he stopped to think of how to frame his question best, “I was wondering if you think she’s coddling me. Or all of us, for that matter.”

Nat’s eyes darkened a bit. “I think she’s very good at getting all of us the help we need. I talk less to her, now that I’ve found my way, but in the beginning she helped me a lot to get my thesis going. You’re asking because Steve told you about Mr. Coulsons approach, right?”

Steve nodded.

“You know Sam and Clint?” She waited till Bucky nodded again to continue, “they’re writing their thesis with him as their main supervisor as well and believe me, I’ve gotten more than a few earfuls about his methods. He doesn’t do much, is way too friendly and not assertive enough, when you really need help.”

Bucky thought about Clint and his almost finished thesis. He only knew him from Natasha’s birthday party, where he seemed like the most self-assured person there. Sam was a close friend of Steve’s and Bucky just always assumed that friends of Steve had to me at least as driven and on top of everything as him.

“Bucky”, Natasha leaned into his side, “you gotta know one thing, if you want to finish the program. When it comes to academia, deadlines, stress and knowledge – everybody’s faking it. Even Steve. He’s just way better at it than you.”

*

Natasha’s words were still echoing in Bucky’s head when he got home, when he tried to sleep and when he got up in the morning again. It dawned on him, a week later, that Natasha might be right. They sat in their colloquium, the first one for the semester, and discussed Clint’s thesis. He was writing about children’s literature, much like Natasha, only he focused on German lit. Steve sat across the room from Bucky and was in the middle of making a heated point about E. T. A. Hoffmann’s ‘The strange child’.

“The naiveté of the two children gets lost the second they enter the forest with Magister Tinte. Hoffmann makes a point in showing us that the world of these children is – to say it bluntly – black and white. They have the house and the forest, rules and freedom. And then Tinte comes along and brings the rules of the house out to the forest.” He huffed and leaned back a little, looking way too pleased with himself.

Natasha was shooting looks over to him, she sat next to Bucky and leaned forward. “I disagree.” Bucky bit his lower lip to prevent himself from smiling. “Rousseau tells us, that childhood is like spring, nature, a flower blooming. Their fear of the forest after Tinte visits them showcases their loss of childhood, but they go back eventually. Their world isn’t black and white. The hunter is a grown up and lives in the forest, their father believes in the forest magic and most importantly the Magister Tinte himself is a magical creature of some sorts. Everything shifts between those two worlds, they are in a constant state of limbo.”

“But when they are with the strange child their world is fine, the child represents the forest, the Magister the city!” Steve didn’t look as happy anymore. Bucky had absolute no idea what the hell they were talking about, but he enjoyed the sight of Steve being restless, slowly realizing that he’s wrong.

“The strange child comes to them later as they cross the bridge, effectively going over to the city-side to bid the children farewell and the Magister is a constant in the forest itself. Rogers, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you are.”

“I gotta agree with Nat here”, a guy with silver-blue hair and not one, but two full sleeve tattoos raised his voice. Bucky recognized him. He was the fourth or Mrs. Hills postgrads. Pietro, or something like that. His twin sister was writing her thesis here too, but under Mr. Coulson. She was missing from the colloquium today.

“Oh great, now this guy has to get a word in”, Steve mumbled under his breath. It was still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“That’s it, I’m gonna kill him.” Bucky furrowed his brows in anger, unwilling to accept just how disrespectful Steve was towards his colleagues.

“Calm down”, Natasha leaned forward with the aggressive elegance of a panther and Bucky knew, that Steve was about to get torn apart. “Mr. Rogers”, her voice was like velvet, “could you please give us all the courtesy of not openly talking trash about us? What you think of your colleagues is none of our business, unless you make it. Now back to the point, how would you defend your stance?”

“Well Mrs. Romanov”, one could cut the tension between them with a knife. Bucky wondered why they were still so nice to each other on any other given day. “I think from an artist’s perspective the world of those two children has to be black and white, until they grow out of it. They learn, take the journey and realize that the two worlds they recognized up until that point, are in fact on a gradient. But that’s further into the novel. Not clear from the start.”

Natasha nodded, “not to them but for the readers. I mean unless you identify so strongly with the children, which, judging by your cheap shot against Pietro just now, I would completely understand.”

Bucky snickered audibly and so did Pietro, Clint and even Sam.

Steve’s face went bride red, as he turned around in his chair, obviously deciding not to discuss this issue any further. The rest of the room looked to Natasha, still holding back laughter, who shrugged and leaned back in her chair, signalizing that the end of the debate was fine with her.

Bucky couldn’t believe how much of a bad sport Steve was. Hell, he’d been wrong a million times before – it wasn’t a big deal. You grow by being called out on a bad theory. He considered briefly, if Steve’s thesis might suffer under his massive ego, but then he decided not to care. Natasha was already back into the discussion, now circling in on Clint’s observations about the sudden death of the father in the story. Bucky zoned out, loosely looking around the room, looking over to Steve. The blonde sat on the edge of his chair with his arms crossed. The second they finished up he was out of the room. Sam followed him, shooting Pietro an apologizing look on his way out.

Bucky wondered if he was gonna set Steve’s head straight, when he caught up on him.

“So”, Nat turned to Bucky and caught him in the middle of a thought, “you wanna go for dinner?”

He nodded slowly. His brain had just now made the mistake of imagining his first presentation in front of the group – especially Steve – and he was trying to push the fear this evoked in him down. “But I can’t stay that long”, he gave Natasha a sorry smile, “still gotta write that Essay.”

“You haven’t finished that jet? Isn’t it due tomorrow?” She cocked an eyebrow and he tried avoiding her piercing eyes. She was right. He’d always taken this route, as long as he could remember. Always avoiding the pending deadline, procrastinating until the day before it was due and then pulling an all-nighter to deliver something that was good – sometimes even excellent – but never quite as good as it could have been.

Fuck it, he thought.

*

The problem with this very flawed system was that it worked. After dinner with Nat he sat down in his dimly lit kitchen/living room and started working. It was 4am when he finished, but he was used to that. He could fit in four hours of sleep before he had to drive down to the university, give the Essay to Mrs. Hill and head to his first class. His 101-class. He was beyond nervous, but the tiredness helped. It was the first week of university for these kids, no matter how nervous he was, they were off worse, right?

He headed to bed and tried not to think about the day before him.

He really tried.

30 minutes later he got up again and took a shower. It was pitch black outside and the world was in that weird state of limbo he liked a lot. He finally sat down, hair still wet, with a cup of tea on the little couch he fit snugly between his bed and the window. He lived on the 7th floor, which was a nightmare when the elevator stopped working, but really nice for moments like this.

The day started and he was there, watching, as the clouds stripped themselves off their darkness and started becoming lighter and lighter. Two hours later dawn broke and he decided to get to the office early.

He knew that the coffee-shop two blocks from his university was open already. Working there had financed his first four semesters, before he’d gotten a better paying job where he didn’t have to get up at half past five every morning. Now he was financed through a scholarship. He felt the guilt about it press down on him the second he entered the shop and saw Darcy, one of his ex-coworkers, behind the counter. She was still here. That sucked.

“Hey Darcy”, he beamed at her and pretended to read the board behind her, as though he didn’t knew every drink they made by heart.

“Oh hello there Mr. doctoral thesis”, she grinned, “congrats! Even though I shouldn’t because you never text me. I had to hear about this from Nat? Really man?”

He gave her an apologetic smile and pressed down a yawn. “I would’ve texted you, but my new schedule is killing me.”

“I’d say”, she turned to the coffee-grinder and the wonderful smell of freshly ground coffee filled the shop, “you’re up awfully early. All-nighter?”

“You know me too well”, Bucky looked at the coffee she made and was glad to see she poured him a cup. “Thank you”, he breathed as she handed it to him with a knowing grin.”

“Stop by more often, the guy that came after you is a lousy flirt and I miss our little chats.”

He promised to do that and took his to-go-cup, leaving a generous tip, at last making his way to his workplace.

The office-hallway was silent and dark. He hadn’t expected anyone here, but to see this usually busy place so empty made him feel some kind of way. He couldn’t explain it. It was just… weird. Finally he got into his office and was struck by the fact that he wasn’t as alone here, as he’d thought.

“Steve?” Bucky squinted at the sudden light, coming from Steve’s desk lamp.

“Oh shit, is it the morning already?” Steve didn’t return the greeting, barely even looking up.

“Depends on how you’d define ‘morning’, it’s”, Bucky checked his watch, “not even seven. Why the fuck are you here?”

Steve finally looked up with a defensive glare, “well you’re here! I had to work on an essay and can’t do that at home because Sam is having someone over and he’s being loud and-“ he stopped himself, seemingly realizing who he was talking to. “Nevermind.”

“Okay then”, Bucky shrugged. Steve didn’t want to talk, fine by him. He didn’t care anyways.

Oh fucking hell. He did. When did that happen? Was he that tired?

“What are you working on?” He heard himself say like the fucking idiot he apparently was.

“An Essay”, Steve was back on his stuff, looking annoyed, “like I already said.”

“Man”, Bucky sighed, “I am trying here.”

“You are?” Steve’s eyes met his and Bucky was not prepared for that. What happened to his hard stance on not forgiving this guy for the shit he said?

“Yeah”, he sat down, trying to bite down the defensiveness in his tone. It was unsuccessful. Why was everything a fight with Steve?

“Interesting approach.” That was all Steve had to say.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re one to talk. You constantly shit all about me and my credentials. And”, he added, getting agitated, “before you say anything: talking to Natasha about me does not count as an apology!”

“I never d- hold up, Natasha told you abou- I swear!” He hit his desk with his small fist. It wasn’t very hard. “I hate this place. Everyone talks about everything and no one keeps shit to themselves.”

He shouldn’t.

He really shouldn’t.

“Language.” The second he said it, he saw the blues eyes across the table narrow.

There was a weird silence, whilst Bucky was cursing himself out. He looked up and Steve just stared at him. Well, this was uncomfortable.

Right when Bucky wanted to say something – anything really – to diffuse the situation, Steve nodded a little, more to himself than to Bucky and said “I’ve been a complete asshole again, haven’t I?”

Okay.

“I wouldn’t say that”, Bucky had no idea what to do now. “You’ve been a dick, yes. But I’ve been a little childish and I hold grudges and I’m really touchy about the whole ‘not taking university serious’-thing and-“

Steve held up a hand to stop him from rambling and Bucky was very glad about it. “Yes to all of that, but what you do is none of my concern and I shouldn’t have said the things I said. I didn’t even apologize. I am truly sorry, James. Man, if this continues you’re gonna have a ton of I’m-sorry-succulents on your desk by the end of semester.”

Bucky snickered. “It’s Bucky.”

“What?”

“People call me Bucky. Not James. I hate that name.”

“Oh”, Steve gave him a small smile. “Alright then.”

Bucky was afraid that this was the end of their conversation. He wanted to talk more, get clarity. “Can I ask you something?”

The blonde looked at him for a second before he nodded.

“Why are you so uptight? No offence, except, well maybe a little offence. I don’t want this to sound rude, but you call out people on swearing and how they spend their time. It seems weirdly condescending to me.”

He expected Steve to snap back at him, but instead the other man just stared at the floor. He looked so small, not at all like the asshole he behaved like 90% of the time. “I guess”, he started, “you’d have to thank my mother for that. She raised me alone and always kept me so on track that cussing or skipping school makes me feel like I’m betraying her. I project a lot, I guess. I never really noticed. God, I’m really that bad, huh?”

Bucky felt something that wasn’t hate and he was confused.

“I can understand that. I just always feel like a peasant when you do it. The whole academia-classist-thing is really pushing a button for me.”

“Classist?” Steve’s exes widened, “I mean it can be read like that, but I don’t-“ he looked up, puzzled, “Jame- Bucky, where do you think I come from?”

It was almost comical.

“Uh, I just always assumed…” Bucky let the sentence trail off, suddenly realizing something very bad. Steve wasn’t from an academic background. Oh god.

“I’m from Brooklyn. Ma raised me alone, I got here on a scholarship that I have and continue to work hard for. You thought all this time that I was some snobby rich kid?” Steve didn’t sound mad. He sounded – sad?

“I’m sorry. I just – you seemed so…”, he tried explaining but Steve shook his head.

“No it’s fine. I guess that’s just how I come off. I’m leaving now.”

Bucky sat in his chair, looking at Steve, who was packing his stuff. As he left the room he put out the light, leaving Bucky in the darkness.

*

Thankfully, his tight schedule didn’t leave any room to contemplate the weird morning he’d had. Bucky tried to ban the hurt look on Steve’s face from his memory, as he opened the door and entered the small room, where is first own students waited for him.

“Good morning”, he walked up to his desk and looked around. There were about 25 people in his 101-class. He still wasn’t quite sure if he was scared or excited. “I’m Mr. Barnes. It’s my job this semester to give you all an introduction into art and literature. This is my very first class, so if you have any questions or wishes, please direct them to me. You can talk to me after class, during my office hours or via e-mail, the address should be on the syllabus, which I hope you all read.” He smiled tensely. “Today we’ll discuss the materials for the next weeks and also your very first research paper, which you will be writing by the end of the semester.”

Good start. He was quite pleased with himself and started explaining the reading materials. It took him 20 minutes. After that he talked about the papers and then he was – finished? How did other people stretch this to the required 90 minutes?

Shit.

“You have any questions?” He was hopeful but nobody raised their hands. “Well in that case, I guess we’ll start with a basic topic, so that we can all be on the same level.” His brain was a black hole, as he tried finding something to talk about that was basic and still enough to last the next hour.

“Any ideas?” He finally asked, again hoping for intake. He looked into 25 blank faces.

This was a nightmare.

After 45 minutes of basically talking about nothing, he gave up and let them go early. Fucking hell. This was a catastrophe. He was a bad teacher and they hated him and he couldn’t help them with their first semester and this just all went to show how misplaced he was at this position.

Bucky found himself on the toilet, staring at his reflection biting down tears, trying very hard to not hear the lyrics of Mulans ‘Who I really am’ that were playing in the back of his head because that was too melodramatic, even for him. It didn’t work. He was having half a meltdown when suddenly-

“Rough first class, huh?”

This was not happening.

Steve came out of one of the stalls and went on to wash his hands in the sink next to him. Bucky didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say and this whole situation was just so – bad.

“I heard them talk, didn’t sound pretty.”

He wanted to punch Steve so badly. This guy had the absolute fucking nerve to belittle him every second of the day, say he’s sorry, only to storm out after – well after Bucky had been a massive asshole – but still.

He wanted to say all that, but instead he just said “why is it always you?”

“What?” Steve dried his hands, not looking at him. Thinking back, he never looked at Bucky unless they fought or had one of those weird touchy-feely-moments that always developed into more fighting.

“It’s always you. Every time I have a bad day, a long night, hell, a damn meltdown – you are there and you are gloating and being a prick and I just can’t-“

And then Steve was kissing him.

In the middle of a bathroom in the second floor of the university they both worked at at 4.30 in the afternoon.

It was bizarre. And also really fucking good.

Bucky knew about the theory of hate-fucking, but experiencing it was something entirely different. Steve kissed like he argued. Throwing punches, getting heated, wanting to _win_. What he wanted to win, Bucky had no idea. But it made everything inside of him melt in a very bad way because they were not compatible and this was very inappropriate and also he was undoing his belt and Steve stepped back just a little to undo his and oh lord those eyes. Bucky decided to stop thinking for a second.

Steve was back, hands on the sides of Bucky’s face, kissing in a deep, desperate way. He let out small, little sighs in between, that made Bucky shiver and trace his hands along Steve’s back, as he felt his erection rub against Steve’s and by god – he needed the friction.

His hands were in Steve’s hair, on his back, under his shirt. He heard a zipper and then Steve was undoing his button up and everything stopped so abruptly, it almost gave him whiplash.

“Fuck”, he heard Steve curse under his breath and his first thought was towards Steve’s mother and the stuff he’d told him this morning, which was not very good at all. “I mean I knew you’re hot but-“ Bucky was ripped out of his thoughts by Steve’s words. _I knew you’re hot_. He bit down the reflex to thank him.

Bucky was active. He tried maintaining a good physique. And yeah, he was proud of the muscles hiding under his clothes. But to hear it from Steve was doing things with him, he didn’t want to examine any further. Not right now anyways.

Instead, he just looked down and Steve looked up and their gazes met, as he could basically see the ‘fuck it’ happen behind those blue, blue eyes.

There was more feeling behind the next kiss. It was slower and the anger they both felt, meddled with a raw want – a need. Bucky took a deep breath, as Steve pressed their hips together, slowly rocking them, grinding against him. They held a steady rhythm until Steve all of a sudden started moaning throaty little moans, signalizing Bucky that he was close and all he could think of was the feeling of the other man collapsing a little against his chest as he made a mess before closing his eyes and following him.

What the fuck?

Bucky’s poor heart couldn’t catch a break as he heard the door creak behind them just after they’d finished cleaning themselves up. Someone opened it. Oh no no no no.

With a flinch he looked over and saw – Sam?

“What is happening here?” Steve’s friend looked at them, eyes wide yet not still as shocked as Bucky would have been, walking into something like this. Was Sam used to this? Did Steve do this on the regular? No! He stopped himself from going any further down that road.

Now Steve turned around as well, zipping his pants and fixing his messy hair. His lips were a dark shade of red – probably the kissing. He looked delicious. And not at all worried.

“Oh hey Sam.”

Of course, he had the absolute audacity of being casual in a situation like this. Of fucking course. Bucky watched in horror as the blonde strolled out of the door, leaving Bucky and Sam alone.

“You know what”, Sam raised his hands and shook his head like he couldn’t believe Steve either, “I don’t even wanna know. I’m just gonna pee somewhere else.”

He backed out the door and Bucky was alone with his pants still undone, his shirt unbuttoned and his mind blown.

*

“So you gonna stop hating him, now that you’ve seen his dick?” Natasha sat across from him, eating her sandwich, taking the news surprisingly well.

“No!” Bucky stared at her, then down at his untouched food. “I mean, I guess not. I don’t hate him anyways but”, he sighed, “I don’t fucking know anything anymore.”

“Was it good?” She grinned at him like this was the most normal thing in the world to her. Hell, for all he knew, it was. Natasha’s love life was a big secret to him, even after all those years of knowing her.

“What? Why would you ask that? Stop it!” Bucky knew he was as red as a tomato.

She was still grinning, “I’m just asking if it was good enough to stop hating him or if he has to put in a little more work next time.”

Bucky chocked on his coke, “next time? No no no, no next time. There will be no next t- oh god will there be a next time? Is this a thing he does? Am I- what are- I mean-“, he slumped down, giving up on trying to build a full sentence. This was just too much. He knew he had to talk to Steve about this but he really did not want to and it was all just bad. So bad.

Natasha was chewing happily, looking unbothered by Bucky’s mental state. “Would be kinda bad for you to stop hating him anyways”, she said.

“Why?” Bucky knew she heard the undertones in his voice, suggesting that he was more than ready to stop hating Steve and start doing other things with him. He cursed himself out for sounding so needy. But damn, that thing in the bathroom did something to him.

“Well hating him is kind of your only hobby right now, and people need their hobbies.”

He threw a fry at Nat, but had to laugh. She was right. Since the semester started, all he did was work, write and complain to her about Steve.

“Can I be serious for a sec?” He steadied himself and tried not to stumble over his words again.

Nat was perfect at situations like these. She was a funny person with a wicked mean sense of humor – but if you wanted to be serious she was that. In a matter of seconds the grin slid from her face and she nodded, taking a sip from the drink next to her plate.

“I don’t know how to feel about this.”

She raised her eyebrows, “yeah no shit, you made that clear.” She saw his face and clicked her tongue, returning to a more serious tone, “sorry. It’s understandable. He just kissed you out of the blue after a mean comment?”

“Yeah”, Bucky felt very small. He looked around, fearing that Steve might sit a cabin over, listening to them. “I mean what the fuck? Who does that? And what“, he swallowed hard, “what if he does that a lot and I was just-“

“A convenient fuck? Yeah no, I haven’t seen Rogers with anyone, like, ever. He had a quick thing with Peggy a year ago, but that went up in flames thanks to their schedules and them being too much alike.” Nat pushed her plate away and put her head in her hands, “being so different might even benefit you.”

“And what do I do now?”

Nat looked at him with pity and mischief in her eyes, “you gotta do something bad now: talk to him.”

*

Bucky had no idea how to walk into his office the next day. It was Friday and he thought about doing some work from home, but then again he had to see Steve at some point and putting it off might be worse than just getting it over with.

He stood in front of the office door, thinking about how he’d made the very rational choice this morning to come here. And then he turned around and went back home, writing Mrs. Hill on his way, that he wasn’t feeling well and would do his work from home today. Hoping nobody would see him, he hopped into the tram and was happy to see the university building disappear behind him.

He had to face Steve, yes. But not today.

Back at home he tried working, but his brain felt like a soggy mass and he ended up watching a full season of Breaking Bad – he’d seen the show 10 times by now, so it was easy background noise and he slipped away into several naps during the day.

At half past 3pm someone rang his doorbell. He lifted his head from the couch and hated the world. It had to be Natasha. Probably here to kick his ass for avoiding Steve today. He groaned, lifting himself from the very soft couch that screamed for him to ignore her and take another nap instead, but the doorbell rang again, so that wasn’t happening.

“Yeah?” His voice sounded raw and tired. He really slept all day. Bucky knew he should feel guilty for not working, but he was also warm and sleepy and that was really nice.

“It’s Steve. Let me up?” Bucky froze. Steve? What the fuck was Steve doing here? This felt too much like a weird ass romantic comedy where Steve would stand in front of his door with some signs telling him he’d been a dick and wants to hook up some more now if that’s ok and Bucky was not having it.

“Steve? What the-“

“Let me in please! I brought soup.”

Bucky pressed the door buzzer without realizing it. “Apartment 7c” he said with a faint voice. Steve brought soup? What was happening? He was in the middle of over thinking when he realized how he must look right now. Hair disheveled, wearing a pair of simple black track pants with a white t-shirt that was stretched out from the napping. He wanted to run for a mirror or quickly change but instead he waited by the door until he heard the elevator doors open with the all too familiar ‘ding’.

When he opened the door, Steve stood there. Giving him a quick once over, eyes glued to his hair for just a second too long. He must look like shit. Bucky stepped aside, letting the other man in.

“We gotta talk”, Steve said in his weirdly deep voice, putting down a container of what seemed to be chicken noodle soup on the kitchen counter. He looked around in Bucky’s apartment, lingering on the bookshelves that filled half a wall.

“We do?” Bucky wanted to hit himself for having a scratchy just-woke-up-voice. He tried channeling the anger he usually felt around Steve. But it was all gone. Fucking hell, what a timing.

“Yeah”, Steve was now standing in front of Bucky’s bookshelves, studying the titles. “The soup is from Natasha, she wanted to stop by but apparently Clint asked her out”, Steve raised an eyebrow and took out one of Bucky’s most loved books – it was about Ptolemaic religion and architecture –, “nice edition, I got the 2007 reprint. They took out the wrong dates in the chapter about Ptolemy III.” He put the book back and Bucky felt the rage coming back. Of course his edition wasn’t the right one. Hell, Steve was probably judging the whole shelve right now.

“He did huh?” Bucky decided not to comment any further on the book issue.

“Yep! And she said yes and gave me your address – kinda careless, might I add – to deliver the soup and I wanted to talk to you anyways.”

“You did?”

“Yes.” Steve smacked his lips with an audible pop and turned around, facing Bucky. “You have to get them discussing something easy, yet approachable.”

Bucky just stood there. What?

“What?”

“Your students. I always start the semester with a discussion about a topic I let them prepare before. Write them an email with the topic and just let them be the animals they are. Believe me, the bloodier the discussion, the better. You want something divisive, yet approachable. A topic where there is no right answer – so no Nazi-art or something like that. I usually use start with a couple of sentences about how to have a discussion about art and other media and then show them a couple of distinct pieces and ask them if they think art has to be pretty and how that might’ve changed over the centuries. Then I give them some pointers about art and being paid for art versus full creative freedom, and- are you ok?”

Bucky had been standing there the whole time with his mouth open.

That’s what Steve wanted to talk about? Bucky’s lousy first class? He was giving him tips? That was it?

“Uh”, he heard himself say. “I guess so, yeah.”

Steve scratched the back of his head, looking generally unimpressed. “You wanted to talk about the toilet hookup? Because honestly I thought I’d just spare us both the weirdness of that.”

“It’s weird”, Bucky admitted, “but I figured we’d have to talk about it. I mean I wanted to, but then I didn’t and so I ditched work today and now you are in my apartment.”

“If you say it like that”, Steve grinned and looked around awkwardly. “Should we – sit?”

“Uhm, yeah I guess.” Bucky gestured towards the couch and briefly thought about running away whilst Steve wasn’t looking. This was so weird.

“So”, Steve sat down and looked at the floor, “I kinda planned on saying sorry but I’m not really sorry about what happened and I hope you’re not feeling bad about it? I mean it was a long day and I heard about your shitty first class and I remembered how bad my first time in front of students was.”

“It was?” Bucky wanted to laugh, “man, you seriously need to work on your tone. You just waltzed in here, sounding all condescending on how I should start my seminars and I was about ready to punch you.”

“You were?” Steve looked confused, but Bucky’s grin made him visibly relax.

“Yeah, you always have that tone or am I just special like that?” Was he – flirting with Steve? Was that really happening right now?

Bucky didn’t have much of a chance to think about it, because Steve was laughing and oh boy, what a sight.

“I don’t mean to tell you you ain’t special, but I kinda get that complaint a lot. Usually from professors I challenge a lot. I guess I have a knack for pissing off people I admire.” Steve heard, what he’d just said and went bride red within a heartbeat.

Bucky grinned, “aw, that’s so sweet.”

“Shut up”, Steve was blushing quite hard, but he still tried playing it off. It was adorable.

“In all seriousness though, I used to look up to you a lot.” Bucky had no idea why he was putting himself out there like that.

“Used to, huh?” Steve muttered. “Until I fucked it up, by sounding like a classist asshole.”

“Something like that, yeah. I still can’t believe you’re not rich, spoiled and grew up with everything to succeed – you kinda ruined my whole picture of you yesterday.” Bucky gave Steve a smile so signalize, that he wasn’t angry with him anymore.

“I guess I give off that vibe, because I spend a lot of time thinking that you have to look and act the part, in order to be accepted into these high-class-academia-circles. And to be fair, it worked. I faked it ever since my ma died. Pretended to be from a good family, putting every free second into pushing myself further. And then you walk into class, not having read the materials, missing every other week and yet you still are so _good_. I hated you for that.”

Bucky just stared at Steve for a moment. “I was always jealous of you, because you could afford to spend all your time at the university. I had to work all of undergrad, most times two jobs. That’s why I was missing out on so many classes.”

“So”, Steve began, “we’re not that different then, huh?”

“We’re both childish as fuck, I think that much is clear.” Bucky suddenly realized something and rubbed his face with a groan, “god, I’m gonna have to tell Nat that she was right all along. She will never let that go.”

“You know, she told me that you weren’t so bad and I did not believe her.” Steve grinned, his blue eyes glistening in the afternoon sun. “She and Sam have also been on my back for the longest time, because I said once – ONCE – that you were too hot to be such a little shit and to be fair I was very drunk that night.”

Bucky leaned back, “yeah, my hotness is totally counteractive to my abilities to piss you off. I’ve noticed that.”

“Fuck you”, Steve laughed.

“For someone who is constantly calling me out for swearing, you are quite the potty mouth.” Bucky laughed and Steve had to laugh as well after a couple of seconds of trying to give an angry glare.

“You should hear my dirty talk”, the blonde one said, blushing again, but only a little this time. “Sorry”, he then said, “I’ve been dropping all kind of hints and you’re not reacting but I can’t stop myself.”

What? Bucky’s head was spinning. Steve _liked_ him? Or, well, at least he wanted to fuck.

“It’s fine.” Bucky had no idea why he said something as lame as that. “I mean I kinda think you’re hot too. God, I am so bad at this.”

“You are”, Steve laughed, “but that’s okay, next time just lift up your shirt and I’ll be fine.”

They laughed and Bucky didn’t want that to end, because when they stopped he had to talk again and he was really out of his depth here. Flirting wasn’t a problem. Flirting with _Steve Rogers_ was.

“So back to the hook up”, he said clumsily, effectively ending their fun, “I don’t usually do that kind of thing. Just so you know.”

“Me neither”, Steve said a little too quickly. “It’s really weird thinking about that. I feel so anxious, like, I totally cornered you that day and it was not cool of me.”

“I mean yeah, next time give me a warning, but-“

“Next time, huh?” Steve was back to grinning and now it was Bucky’s turn to blush.

“I didn’t mean to-“

“No, but I wouldn’t mind.”

“You wouldn’t?”

Silence. They both looked at the floor, Bucky felt a bit uneasy. Nat was right. There was gonna be a next time. He was usually so cool and collected around people he wanted to get with, but with this guy he just – melted. And with that all his game got washed away.

“How about we go out?” Steve finally said, breaking the silence.

“Like a date?” Bucky met his eyes and smiled his warmest smile.

“Yeah, if you’d like that?” Steve smiled back. It was a nice moment, but Bucky didn’t know if that was a good idea.

“We’d need some serious ground rules. Every time we talk we end up at each other’s throats and I don’t want to do the other people at the restaurant dirty like that.”

Steve snorted, “you are right. So no talk about classes, our thesis, our supervisors, the conference next month-“

“There is a conference next month?” Bucky blinked.

“I’m guessing you haven’t read your emails today? We all have to participate. It will be hell.”

“I’m gonna die”, Bucky said, suddenly feeling very tired. “I don’t even know how to handle everything else.”

“That’s normal”, Steve reached out and gently touched Bucky’s arm, “it’ll be fine. It always worked out so far. You’ll see.” He smiled and Bucky had to smile back.

“But I guess dating it a lot on top of that. Tried that, didn’t work.” Steve’s words dug deep into Bucky’s skin.

“Yeah”, he replied with a scratchy voice, “I guess so. Nat told me about you and Peggy.”

Steve shrugged. “So we don’t have time to date and figure stuff out, we still low-key hate each other but not really and we hooked up in a bathroom once. Yeah, this is way too complicated.”

“Totally”, Bucky agreed, noticing Steve slowly inching closer, “I guess we should just leave all that behind and be office roommates.”

“Yeah”, Steve looked at him from below with his big, blue eyes. “Before we do something really dumb.”

“Yeah like hooking up _outside_ of a bathroom. I mean inside okay, but everything else seems wrong.”

They were close. Really close. Bucky could feel Steve’s breath on his face as he laughed at the comment and he knew, _oh_ _he knew_ , that they were going to do exactly that: something stupid.

When he finally closed the space between their faces, it was different than before. There was no anger, no desperation. He explored Steve’s mouth with his tongue, taking his sweet time. There was no rush and the possibility of them never doing this again was sadly quite high.

He had to savor the moment.

And that he did. Slowly he moved over Steve, trapping the smaller man under him, effectively pinning him on the couch, kissing deeper and more passionate, lifting Steve’s head with one of his arms, supporting himself with the other. Steve’s hands were in his hair, tucking on the hair band until it was free and he could run his fingers through Bucky’s hair without having to navigate around a loose man bun.

Bucky positioned himself upright, sitting on his knees that were left and right of Steve’s hips, pulling his t-shirt over his head. He heard Steve suck in air.

“What, you missed the look?” He grinned.

“Boy did I”, Steve joked, but his eyes were glued to his body. “You look like a damn artwork.”

“Really?” Bucky pushed Steve back into the cushions, pinning him down for another deep kiss.

“Yeah”, Steve was breathing heavily, “like one of those you have discussions about, because everyone can agree it’s pretty, but the message behind it seems kinda lackluster.”

Bucky punished the comment by sucking on the skin on Steve’s collarbone until a dark mark appeared on the alabaster skin. “You care to elaborate how I’m lacking depth?”

Steve smirked because _of course_ he was into that. “Well, from an artist’s perspective-“

“Oh shut the fuck up with that elitist sounding crap already”, Bucky laughed and pulled Steve into a kiss that carried the fun and the discussion along in the nicest way.

They turned their bickering into a hot make-out session and Bucky wasn’t mad at the concept.

After what felt like an hour Steve asked to take a break.

“My lips are sore, how the hell did you manage that?” He stood up and Bucky notices with pleasure how wobbly his knees were.

“Guess I’m just good like that.” He smirked.

“You wanna move this into the bedroom or nah?” Steve stretched a little, looking like a damn snack.

Bucky was dumbfounded at that. “I guess so?”

“Oof, you guess so?” The other man laughed. “Way to be enthusiastic about it.”

“I guess I’m just overwhelmed. Didn’t really think the day would develop that way.”

“Really?” Steve got himself a glass of water and sat back down, “after you opened your door like that. Hair all over the place, looking like you just woke up with those real nice eyes of yours.”

“It that your famous dirty talk or is there more to come because I am really underwhelmed so far.”

“Oh no”, Steve leaned back and mustered Bucky in a way that looked too sinful to be allowed, “you don’t get to experience that yet. Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“As if you don’t already do.” Bucky laughed and stretched a little, happily noticing how Steve followed the movements with his eyes.

“Hate to be a killjoy, but should we do this?” He saw Steve’s face getting darker and hated it. “I just mean with us being colleagues and not having time to date. I don’t want to hook up three times and then try to never see you again because it’s awkward.”

“I get your point, I’ve been thinking about that too, but I also think we should do what feels nice and comfortable and right now, this feels really good to me. Like we’ve been doing it for years.”

“Technically we have”, Bucky grinned, “I mean the bickering. All that was left was the hardcore making out in between.”

“True“, Steve smiled up to him and Bucky felt that melting-feeling again. His problem was mostly, that he knew he’d fall for Steve and then it wouldn’t work out and he’d have to watch him date other people and eventually move out of their office and it would hurt and suck and hating him was so much easier.

*

They eventually agreed on not sleeping with each other until the conference was over. Bucky hated to see Steve leave, but he wanted to do this right. Steve had bad experiences with dating people from the program and Bucky still wasn’t quite sure if he liked Steve or was just too exhausted to care. The jury was still out on that. Even though the other man had been right, it _felt_ nice.

He slumped down on the couch and put his head back, sliding his hand under his waist band. Hell, no one could judge him for doing that after one hour of making out with a guy like Steve. One hand around the base of his cock, he began slowly sliding it up and down, exes closed, thinking about how nice it had been, seeing the smaller man under him like that. Big blue eyes looking up to him, begging for more.

He moaned and picked up the pace, squeezing the tip of his dick with every stroke just how he liked it. A little pain mixed into the pleasure. He remembered the dark hickey he left on Steve, imagined the other man feeling it every time he moved. The painful reminder of them making out. And then Bucky’s thoughts were back in the university bathroom. Trying to channel the feeling of their bodies against each other like that, standing up, sweating, kissing like they hated each other.

He came with a shuddery, long moan, visualizing how it would feel, to fill Steve out. Leave his hot cum inside him. Hold him, as he came, too.

In the shower it dawned on him just how fucked he was.

*

The conference was two weeks later and Bucky couldn’t spend half a moment thinking about Steve, even if he tried. He just didn’t have the time. It was Friday and all eight of them were dead inside. Between office hours, several seminars, their individual theses and the stuff for the conference, it was hard trying to think straight. Especially Natasha and Peggy were out, since they also had to finish up with their anthology on Bauhaus women.

The panels took up most of Friday afternoon and all of Saturday. Now of course they were also expected to go out with the other presenting people on both days. It was, as Steve had so eloquently put it, hell.

Bucky sat together with Nat, Pietro, Steve, Sam and Clint in the third row of the lecture hall, listening to Pietro’s sister, Wanda, present something about early child memories on the stories told and how Rousseau’s model formed the way children were raised, by telling people to read the male children Robinson Cruseo during early development. Female children in turn weren’t read stories at all. Wanda was very vocal on calling out Rousseau for his sexist bullshit, whilst still staying calm and composed. It was actually quite entertaining.

If only Bucky hadn’t been so damn tired.

“Any questions?” She looked pleased with herself, as she answered the only question, coming from a colleague from another university.

Bucky was up next, right before the break. His hands were sweating, as he made his way up to the podium. He started his presentation and was pleased with the immediate laughter in the room. The first slide just read the word ‘apples’.

“Hello Ladies, Gentlemen and people in between”, he started, pulling a confident smile. Fake it, he remembered himself. “Today I’m going to talk to you about apples. You might ask yourself, what this type of fruit has got to do with the topic of this conference, but let me assure you – it’s a lot.”

He began laying out his work on apples in children’s media, fitting in a quick sidenote about the religious aspects of it. The thirty minutes flew by, as he was getting more and more confident in himself.

“Any questions?” He asked at the end, as was customary. A hand shot up immediately and Bucky had to hold back a groan.

“Yes, uhm, Mr. Rogers?”

“I just wanted to circle back on your work with snow white, since it seems to be such a well developed topic. I am just wondering why you didn’t include more on that?”

Bucky sighed, “Thank you. In researching this topic I found a wide range of apple-related fairy tales and children’s media. I wanted to stir away from the picture people usually associate with, regarding this topic, to shine a more focused light on the material that strays away from the snow-white-related content.”

“Why though? I mean if it’s something people think about immediately, why not include it and reflect on it?”

“First off, that has been done before and I strive to do something new; secondly, snow white is a European centered piece of media and I feel like I owe it to the rest of the world to give their stories a voice for a change.”

Steve nodded lightly, “I get that, but then again especially because of Europe’s, call it rather unfortunate, influence, I’d take it, that a lot of these other stories are impacted by snow white’s source material at least to a certain degree.”

“Are you saying that the rest of the world isn’t capable of creating their own myths?”

“No! Don’t twist my words like that! I’m just saying that ignoring the fact, that snow white had an impact on other cultures is quite naïve.”

“I-“, Bucky let out a deep breath, “thank you for your comments, I will reflect upon them further. Now, if there aren’t any more questions, I think we all have earned a break.”

The room responded thankfully to Bucky’s decision to cut off the debate at this point. He saw Mrs. Hill smirk on her way out. He’d find her later to ask if he did a good job, but he had a great feeling. Despite Steve calling him naïve.

“So what’s your deal?” Sam snuck up on Bucky, just as he was joining the gang in front of the room. He looked at Bucky, then at Steve, then at Bucky again. “You two fucking? Fighting? Both?”

Natasha snickered and Bucky felt himself blush. Steve was red as well, shooting Sam a deadly look.

“You got it almost correct”, Natasha was still grinning, “they hooked up once-“

“In a bathroom! Yes that much I know.” Sam laughed.

“Oh so you’ve heard the story.” Natasha and Sam exchanged a look and Bucky was ready for the ground to swallow him up. Steve didn’t look any better.

“I did! This one”, he gestured in Steve’s direction, “didn’t have to tell me about the bathroom fuckery, though. I walked in on them. Thankfully after they were finished.”

“No fucking way!” Natasha’s eyes were gleaming with mischief. “Tell me everything. Did you also walk in on them making out on Bucky’s couch a couple weeks ago? I have heard that story like ten times and it’s still so funny. They made out and then _nothing_.”

“That explains the sexual tension, but why oh why can’t they just-“

“Get a grip? I have no fucking idea! I’ve been telling them from the beginning of the semester. You know I had to settle a fight over a damn desk once?”

They walked away from Steve and Bucky, talking and exchanging stories about their love life like it was nothing.

“Combining those two might’ve been a bad idea”, Steve said after a couple of seconds.

“Yeah”, Bucky shrugged. “We’re going to suffer a whole lot, aren’t we?”

Steve grinned, “I guess so. What are you doing tonight?”

“Uhm”, Bucky had a faint idea where this was going, “going to bed I guess? We still have tomorrow and-“

“I know”, Steve smiled, “but I’m presenting later and I thought maybe you want to go out afterwards? With the others, I mean. I’d like it, if you were there.”

“So that you can grill me some more about being naïve?” Bucky laughed, as Steve averted his eyes to the ground.

“I did that tone-thing again, huh?”

“Yeah but don’t worry about it. I’ll be there”, he squinted into the direction Natasha and Sam headed, “even if those assholes are going to be insufferable about it.”

*

Steve’s presentation was the last one of the day and after he finished his – as usual perfect – talk, a bulk of people formed, pressing out of the lecturing hall. The chatter and laughter signalized, that they were all ready to get fucked.

It was the best part of a conference. 150 people, all having something in common, sitting in bars and restaurants all over town. Usually, it ended with getting drunk with a bunch of complete strangers, shit talking their thesis, programs, students and supervisors. The next morning, all was forgotten. The only reminder being a heavy headache and the terrible feeling like you’ve said one or two things that were way out of line.

Bucky followed Nat, Sam, Steve and Clint to a restaurant, were they found some more people from the conference to eat with. Later that night they met up with Pietro and Wanda at a bar, Nat and Clint suspiciously disappearing somewhere in between.

Shortly before midnight, Bucky and Steve found themselves in a corner, sitting next to a very drunk Mrs. Hill that was talking with a colleague of hers a touch too loud about their respective husbands. Steve was clearly listening in, smiling into the darkness, nursing a beer.

“You are terrible, you know that?” Bucky grinned.

“What? This happens to be very good inspiration for my chapter about the female view of male characteristics in modern adaptations of Irish children’s tales.

Bucky blinked slowly.

“I’m sorry what? How are you not drunk enough to prevent you from saying shit like that?”

“I am a very good drunk, you see. Wrote my best essays plastered.”

Bucky snickered, “say that a little louder, will ya? I want Mrs. Hill to overhear and tear you a new one.”

“Asshole”, Steve punched Bucky’s arm in a playful manner. “Hey you wanna get out of here?”

Bucky nodded, following Steve towards the door. It was a short walk to Bucky’s place. Going there wasn’t even discussed they just turned that direction and went with it. Bucky heard himself talk to Steve, but he had no real idea about what. It was a nice evening, with summer on the brink, just about ready to fully consume the city. Bucky felt nice, light and like he could go on walking next to Steve forever. What a big change these last two weeks had brought with them. They still fought an awful lot, but now it was different. Bucky knew, when to stop himself so that he wasn’t being mean and Steve tried using a less judgmental tone.

“Bucky?” He was ripped from his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“We’re here.” Steve smiled at him with a hint of wonder behind his eyes.

“Oh right, sorry, lost in a thought”, Bucky apologized, pulling out his key to open the door.

“You do that a lot, hm?” He could hear the soft smile in Steve’s voice. The melting feeling was back and he didn’t like that one bit. This guy had way too much power over him.

“I guess”, Bucky shrugged, “I tend to zone out. It’s something I try to avoid, but it just – happens sometimes.”

“Not a criticism”, Steve breathed. They stepped out of the elevator and walked towards Bucky’s door.

“I know, just thought I’d offer an explanation.” Both men smiled as Bucky opened the door to his apartment.

“It’s kinda cool how much better we got at communicating”, Steve said, stretching his arms on the way inside. Bucky just nodded. He knew that Steve couldn’t see him, but he was sure the other man knew.

They ended up in Bucky’s bedroom. It wasn’t even about sex at this point, Bucky was just glad that Steve was here. He’d come to really like him, despite his snobby remarks every now and then. He chuckled to himself, gaining the attention of Steve, who was in the middle of pulling his pants down.

“Woah Stevie, if only I knew you were this easy to get out of your pants I would’ve gone drinking with you years ago”, he laughed.

“Stevie”, Steve cocked an eyebrow, “now where does this sudden nickname come from?”

Bucky pulled his shirt over his head as a way to stop the direction of their conversation in its tracks. It worked. Steve was stunned into silence, not giving half a shit about how obviously he was checking Bucky out. Not that he cared. This kind of attention was nice.

He felt a warm hand on his back and seconds later Steve was running his hands up Bucky’s stomach.

“You wanna get on the bed?” Bucky laughed.

“Nah”, Steve was still touching Bucky’s abs, “I’m all good here.”

“You are such a little shit”, the brunet exhaled with a wide grin, gripping Steve by the waist, lifting him up.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Bucky ignored the bickering and threw Steve on the bed. With enough control as not to hurt him, but just hard enough to make the other man suck in air hard.

“What? You got a problem with that, Stevie?” He felt a sudden spurt of arousal travel through his veins, making the blood rush in his ears, as he climbed over Steve, who was looking at him with his big, innocent blue eyes. “Because if you do, you gotta say so now, before I continue opening you up real nice and slow until you’re all mine to take.” He was whispering at this point, his lips right next to Steve’s left ear, brushing against his ear lobe. Steve shuddered and Bucky was pleased with himself.

“Damn Buck, the rate this is going, I won’t even need to get out my dirty talk. You got that division covered all by yourself”, Steve breathed, head leaning back just a little.

“You’ll get a chance to show off some other time, fair?” Bucky smirked as he saw Steve nodding slowly. Pupils blown, breath shaky. “You already look so nice to me”, he said in a dark, raspy voice, “like you’re yearning for a kiss.”

“You know”, Steve was talking so quietly that Bucky wouldn’t have heard him, if they weren’t so damn close, “dirty talk is only sexy if you follow through.” He laughed a breathy, silent laugh that made Bucky’s skin tingle.

He wasn’t gonna let that invite go to waste now, was he?

Bucky closed the space between them earning an approving little sigh from Steve. His hand slid under the shirt, tugging at it, signalizing that he wanted to take it off. Steve nodded into the kiss, breaking it only long enough to let Bucky strip him. Every second their kiss got hungrier, deeper and Bucky wanted more.

He pulled away, leaving Steve making a whiny noise that stopped abruptly when Bucky started kissing his neck, down to his collarbones where he left that mark the last time. He remembered their long, nice make-out session and all he wanted to do now is take Steve it, consume him, mark him, punish him in the most delicious way for all the shit he had given him the past years.

When he reached Steve’s lower abdomen, every kiss, every lick was met with a little whimper. It sounded like music in Bucky’s ears. He pulled down Steve’s underwear, taking his sweet time.

“Jesus man, will you pick up the damn pace?”

Bucky laughed at that, but he did speed it up a little. After all, his own erection was getting quite painful and Steve was twitching with every touch. He bit his lower lip, looking up to the other man’s face who was watching him impatiently. Perfect. He With a long lick, he traced Steve’s dick once from the root to the head with one long lick. Steve thrust up a little, only being held down by Bucky’s arms. He gave him a deep, throaty moan. Bucky loved this part. He’d always been good with his tongue, flicking it over Steve’s most sensitive parts, hollowing out his cheeks, taking all of him in at once until he could feel the other man shake under his every move.

“Fuck Bucky stop”, Steve breathed, grabbing Bucky’s hair with one hand, pulling him up.

“What?” Bucky dove up to Steve’s face to kiss him dirtily, “you can’t handle a little blowjob?” He smirked.

“You’re killing me here Bucky”, the blonde moaned.

“That’s the idea”, Bucky kissed him again, twirling his tongue around Steve’s mouth like he’d just done it around the tip of his dick. He wasn’t playing fair but Steve had it coming.

“Oh is it?” Steve grinned, tracing his hand along Bucky’s jeans, giving his aching boner the friction it so desperately needed. Bucky felt like every bone in his body had melted and all he could do was lie there, with Steve’s hand in his crotch. The other man opened the pants, shimmying around the boxers until he had managed to pull them down far enough to get to the goods behind them. It would’ve been ridiculously funny, if Bucky wasn’t so damn horny.

He pulled himself up, ridding himself on the jeans and his underwear in one swift motion. Steve’s eyes were glued to him. “Damn”, he mumbled, “one of these days, you gotta let me draw you.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, “you thinking about that right now, really?”

“Shut the fuck up and come here, otherwise I will draw you and that shit takes hours and you will suffer, I guarantee you that.”

“Rogers!” Bucky climbed back on the bed with a mocking tone, “Language!”

Steve pulled him into a deep kiss, hands traveling along Bucky’s sides, exploring. He returned the courtesy, aiming towards Steve’s butt. The smaller man moaned into the kiss, opening his legs just enough to let Bucky’s hand trail in between them.

“As much as I’d like to get fucked by you, I don’t think I’ll make it as far and we also have to be up in”, Steve looked at the clock on Bucky’s bedside table and groaned, “five hours again.”

Bucky nodded, opting out for Steve’s dick, slowly pumping it in a steady rhythm that made his partner sigh in the best way possible. He inched closer, bringing his own erection towards Steve’s until he could jack them off simultaneously, whilst Steve locked his hands behind Bucky’s back, steadying himself against the other man. It only took them a minute to start moaning, exchanging kisses whenever they both had enough air left for it.

Steve came first, putting his head against Bucky’s chest as he spilled all over their chests, waiting for Bucky to follow before pulling him into one last kiss, sporting a satisfied grin on his face.

*

_Three months later_

“Steve are you kidding me? This whole ordeal is bullshit! You can’t just change my essay-part and expect me to be okay with that! It’s our anthology! Not yours!”

“Bucky”, Steve narrowed his eyes, “I’ve been in this program for two years longer than you. I know what works and what doesn’t. Why don’t you just let me help?”

“Because it was _my_ part. I have to learn by making mistakes and you undercutting me like that is so incredibly patronizing.”

The summer heat was pressing down on their little office. The door to the hallway was open, but neither of them gave a shit. It wasn’t like the other people weren’t used to them fighting. Natasha appeared in the open door, looking unimpressed.

“Boys, we can all hear you. It is too hot to listen to you complaining like that.” She sounded unusually whiny. The heat was getting to all of them.

“Nat I love you but I gotta rip him a new one or so god help me”, Bucky nearly screamed. “He approved changes to my essay-part in out anthology without talking to me about it. I am-“

“Bucky”, Nat held up a hand, “I love you and I feel you, but one more word and I am getting my spray.”

Steve grimaced. “C’mon Nat, you get my side right?”

“Your – side? Oh lord”, she shook her head and disappeared again.

“No, she doesn’t, Steve”, Bucky clapped his hands, “because I remember vividly how pissed she was, when Peggy did the same thing. If she’s on a side, it’s mine!”

“Boys!” Natasha’s voice sounded like it came from her office. She was still terrifying.

“Sorry Nat!” Bucky shouted, “you know I’m right Steve, just say you’re sorry.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Bucky, if I apologize to you will you two keep quiet?” That was Clint. He sounded like he was in pain.

“That’s it!” Natasha came storming back into the office, holding a water spray bottle in her hands. With one quick motion she sprayed Bucky first, then Steve. The blonde nearly fell of his chair as he tried protecting his laptop.

“Nat!” He whined. “What the fuck?”

“Language Rogers!” Bucky laughed until Natasha sprayed him again.

“You two wanna behave like animals, I’ll treat you like animals!” Natasha turned around to leave, throwing her hands into the air as she exclaimed breathlessly: “children! They are actual children!” 

Steve laughed and looked over to Bucky. “I don’t think we’ll be very effective today. You wanna call it an early night and get out of here? Maybe trash talk Nat for a bit?” He cocked one eyebrow suggestively.

“No, I’m still mad at you! And besides, we have a shit ton of work to do!” Bucky had a hard time not laughing. He really was mad. Steve should know better by now than to just undercut him like that.

“Are you mad at my penis too?” Steve gave him an innocent smile with that and Bucky had no idea what the hell he was supposed to say to that.

“Shut the fuck up”, he grinned.

“Language!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I got the idea for this fic rereading "This is how you argue" by runningwafers - if you liked my work (or even if you didn't), please check the fic out. It is one of my favorites. If you are interested in more university-AUs I also have another fic about the topic, this one from Steve's POV, so be sure to check out my profile if you want.
> 
> I'd also love it, if you could leave kudos/comments. I write to read your feedback and it would really make my day!


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